Good Life Project - How to Turn Anxiety Into a Superpower | Dr. Wendy Suzuki

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

Have you ever felt overwhelmed or helpless in the face of anxiety? Like the more you try to manage it, the more out of control it becomes? Maybe it’s in social situations where you’re surrounded by new people or work situations where it’s so easy to start spinning about everything from how you’ll be perceived to what happens if you stumble. Or, maybe it's just about the state of your life, relationships, family, community, or even the world. If that’s you, you're not alone. But, what if anxiety was actually just a particular type of energy that could be transformed into something akin to a superpower? This is the bold idea offered by my guest today, Professor Wendy Suzuki. Her latest book, Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion, explores how to use anxiety as a superpower. Wendy is passionate about helping people understand the phenomenon of anxiety and how to reframe it in order to lead a more fulfilling life and offers science-based strategies to help us turn the volume down on our anxiety responses. You can find Dr. Wendy at: Website | InstagramIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Jud Brewer about unwinding anxiety.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED: To submit your “moment & question” for consideration to be on the show go to sparketype.com/submit. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The emotion of anxiety is not a disease. It is a normal human emotion. And evolutionarily, that evolved to protect us from danger. And that is why we are here today. People can usually say, okay, I get that. That sounds good. I buy that. But still, I'm not feeling protected one itsy-bitsy little bit from my anxiety.

And the answer is, no, we're not because the volume of our anxiety is turned up way high. And so the big part of the book, Good Anxiety, is about providing science-based approaches to turn the volume down, not to get rid of it. Again, it's normal human emotion, but to start to turn it down. So have you ever felt overwhelmed or helpless in the face of anxiety? Kind of like the more you try to manage it, the more out of control it becomes. Maybe it's in social situations where you're surrounded by new people or work situations where it's so easy to start spinning about everything from how well you'll be perceived to what happens if you stumble. Or maybe it's just about the state of your life or relationships or family or community

or even the world. If that's you, you are not alone. But what if anxiety was actually a particular type of energy that approached differently could be transformed into something akin to a superpower. This is the bold idea offered by my guest today, Professor Wendy Suzuki. Wendy is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at New York University and a researcher who focuses on the relationship between the brain and behavior with a particular emphasis on the role of stress and anxiety. Wendy's work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and her latest book, Good Anxiety. It explores how to use anxiety as a superpower. Wendy is passionate about helping people understand the phenomenon of anxiety and how to really reframe it in order to lead a more fulfilling life. And today we're diving into how, according to Wendy, anxiety can be essential and beneficial.

And with the right approach, it can be turned into a powerful ally and asset. She helps us understand the science behind anxiety, how it's triggered and how to use it to our advantage. And by exploring the relationship between the physiological state of fight or flight and the emotion of anxiety, she offers a really new perspective on how to reframe and manage anxiety despite the pandemic and other uncertainties in life. Wendy offers science-based strategies to help us really turn the volume down on our anxiety response and turn the power up on what it can actually do for us, not just to us.

So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

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Flight risk. Last time we were together, we were in my home studio on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was 2015. We were talking about a whole wide range of things about the way that the brain works and affect us, our lives, our behaviors, our relationships. The world has changed in profound ways since then. Your recent work has shifted. You've had this really fascinating focus on anxiety and what happens in the brain, how that affects us. You've had this really fascinating focus on anxiety and what happens in the brain, how that affects us. And you make a really provocative claim also in your recent book, Good Anxiety, which is that this thing that something like 90% of people experience

and want nothing but to never experience it at all can in fact explore differently, be turned into something of a superpower. Now, I want to dive into that. But before we get there, let's just actually talk about the word anxiety and the phenomenon of anxiety, because I think there's a lot of ambiguity around it. So when we're talking about anxiety, what are we actually talking about? Yeah. So here's something that's really a huge take-home message, that the emotion of anxiety is not a disease. It is a normal human emotion. Every single human experiences emotion. I don't know how many people have come up to me and said, oh, I have anxiety. I have it. Oh,

no. Well, that just means you're human. And the premise of the book starts with is that evolutionarily the emotion, the normal human emotion of anxiety and that underlying physiological stress response that comes with it, you know what it feels like, sweaty palms, butterflies in your stomach, heightened heart rate, sweats all over. That evolved to protect us from danger. Okay. Oh, that sounds good. I want to be protected from danger.

And so how did it work? Well, it was obvious 2.5 million years ago when a new mom was walking around with a little baby trying to gather food and she hears the crack of a twig. And that could be the difference between life and death, the crack of a twig. What is that? Is that a raccoon or is that a big mountain lion? And so her body physiologically, like our bodies, got her ready to either fight the bad animal or run away. And that is why we are here today. People can usually say, okay, I get that. That sounds good. I buy that. But still, I'm not feeling protected one itsy bitsy little bit from my anxiety. And the answer is, no, we're not. Very few of us are

because the volume of our anxiety is turned up way high. So we're not quite at that. It's actually quite a razor's edge of the level of anxiety where you can get the positive energy, where you can get that protection. And so the big part of the book, Good Anxiety, is about providing science-based approaches to turn the volume down, not to get rid of it. Again, it's normal human emotion, but to start to turn it down and we can start from there. I want to go a little bit deeper into this. So you draw a connection between this state of anxiety, this feeling of unease, of discomfort, and what you described without using the phrase as what I've often heard as the fight or flight response, or I guess every few years they add a word to it, fight, flight, or freeze, fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. It seems to be expanding

indefinitely at this point, but there is something that happens in our nervous system that literally creates the feeling of psychological and physical unease. Tell me a little bit more about that pathway. I'm curious how that works and then how does that actually connect to this thing we call anxiety? Yeah, that's a great question. So that physiological pathway is, again, an ancient pathway. We know its components. This is the autonomic nervous system. On one hand, there's the fight or flight response.

On the other hand, thank goodness, there's the natural rest and digest part of our nervous system that nobody ever talks about. We're going to get to that in a second. So you asked me about fight or flight. That is controlled by part of the nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system. It is controlled in our central nervous system by cells in the hypothalamus, but those cells connect to a wide range of different body areas that control why your stomach starts to feel funny, that it actually stops your digestion, why your heart rate goes up, why your respiration goes up.

So the hypothalamus is connecting to all of those respiration cardiac centers. It's connecting to the part of the nervous system that controls digestion. And that is what's happening. Also controlling blood flow. So what happens in fight or flight is that all your blood is going from your digestion and reproductive organs, because when a lion is chasing you,

you don't have time to ovulate. Sorry, no time for that. You need to run. And so all that blood goes to your muscles to be able to do that. And what goes with that running, fighting, increased heart rate, get that blood pumping into those muscles, increased respiration, your pupils dilate because you need to see lots of different things.

And that's what we all experience in this state of anxiety. You ask the relationship between anxiety and fight or flight. So anxiety is triggered by lots of different things. Every individual knows their triggers for anxiety better than I do. I know my own very well. And these are outside experiences that sometimes have been developed over years and years and years. I happen to have, I still have a slight fear of a cocktail party. Like, what am I going to say? What am I going to say? It's cognitive anxiety because I know that cocktail parties can be anxiety provoking for me. I start to feel that anxiety and that is naturally projected to the

hypothalamus that starts to start all of these fight or flight, you know, and my stomach starts to feel funny and I start to sweat. So those are the kind of steps that typically take place. But I want to come back to the other half of this autonomic nervous system. Half of it is the fight or flight system, but every single one of us has another part of the nervous system called the parasympathetic nervous system or rest and digest part of the nervous system. And this is the part of the nervous system called the parasympathetic nervous system or rest and digest part of the nervous system. And this is the part of the nervous system that naturally in an appropriate situation, not when the lion's coming at me, but, oh, it is Saturday afternoon. I don't have to do anything until Monday morning. And so what does this part of the nervous system do in this environment? Oh, it slows my heart rate down. It slows my respiration.

My pupils are not dilated anymore. It's like, oh, I'm going to lay down and watch Netflix for a while. And blood can rush back to our digestion and reproductive organs because that's what we can do in times of relaxation. We can eat. We can digest. We can have sex. All of that. It's an ancient system. And a lot of what I talk about

in the book is reminding people that you have this system. There are known ways to activate that system. So what if you start to kind of work on your activation of your own parasympathetic rest and digest system and as a natural way to turn that volume down on your fight or flight, on your anxiety responses. Yeah. It's interesting also because of the way you're describing it. I think most people experience anxiety as a psychological or an emotional state without really realizing that it's a physiological state. Also, we tend to feel physically uneasy. I know when I'm anxious, that old phrase, well, I feel it in my gut. It's not just a phrase. I actually feel my stomach clamping down. I feel

my muscles tighten up. I feel my shoulders rise up to my ears a little bit. I think it's interesting because I think we think it's something that we experience in our head. It is a full body phenomenon. It is. Absolutely. And everybody experiences it in slightly different ways, more stomach butterflies or more sweating, but it's all part of the same system and all controlled by the same parts of our nervous system.

But you're absolutely right. It's a full body kind of response to these environments. And remember, this is a protective response. This is your body or evolution saying, hey, pay attention here. It's not like, ah, if you feel like it, if there's a lion coming at you, you know, just as if you feel like it. No, it's like, this is important. And again, it evolved to help protect us from physical dangers. But even the things that get you anxious now,

no, you're not anxious about that Netflix episode you didn't watch. I'm like, oh no, I didn't watch that episode yet. Oh God, I'm so anxious about that. No, you're anxious about things that are important to you. Your work, this project that's coming up, your relationship with your family, with your boyfriend, with your girlfriend, money issues. These are all things that are very important to you. That is the warning signal. And it always helps me to step back and realize, okay, what is

this warning me for? Is that important to me? Yes, it is. Okay. I understand that this uncomfortable feeling is my body's protective mechanism to say, hey, Professor Suzuki, you have a class in an hour. You better be sure that all the things that you're supposed to get done were done. That makes so much sense to me.

I think a lot of people I've had a conversation, basically they say, well, as uncertainty increases, that's what leads to anxiety. And I don't think that's actually it. For me, it's more about uncertainty plus stakes. If I have a high level of uncertainty, but the stakes are really low, I'm fine. It's like what you just, if I'm reading a book and I have no idea how it's going to end. Yeah. It's great. I'm good. But if I'm the protagonist in the book going through some harrowing thing and the stakes are life or death, it's not so much the uncertainty alone.

It's the uncertainty plus increasing stakes, which makes me really curious about, you mentioned before, you walk into a cocktail party and certainly so many of us had that experience. I would probably raise my hand and say, I'm a highly sensitive person. And on the introverted side of the social spectrum, I walk into that room and I feel the same thing to this day. What's going on there then? Because I could walk into a room where I really don't care all that much about this particular experience. And yet still, even thinking about it, I will feel my body start to move into that state. When we talk about social anxiety, is this in some way different?

I don't think about it as different. I talk about that a lot in my book because it is my deeper desire not to do well or to be the most popular one at the cocktail party, but to my valuing of the relationships and the friendships that I have, which are the most precious things really in my life. And part of this is historical. So maybe you don't care about these people at the party, but you've been worried. And part of this is historical. So maybe you don't care about these people at the party, but you've been worried. And part of that is the memory that I get this feeling when I go to cocktail parties and it doesn't really matter.

I always have had this since I was a little kid going to the birthday parties, right? It becomes part of our personal histories and sometimes our memories are good even when we don't want them to be good in that way. And a part of that is the memories coming up. But to get back to the core of at least my social anxiety, it is this deep desire to connect and the fear that, ooh, maybe it won't happen. Maybe I won't expand my, not the superficial friendships, but the deep ones that I really, truly care about. And that is true. I've always had this kind the possibility of making friends and connecting with people. That really helped me actually at cocktail parties to realize that it's not that bad. It's not a fear, a deep down fear of this situation.

It's a demonstration of something that I really, truly care about. And that's kind of easier to interpret in my own behavior. So I see that as very similar to many other forms of anxiety. Yeah. I remember having a conversation with Ellen Henriksen a couple of years back. And as we're talking, realizing that I had created a coping strategy for those situations without even realizing it, that made me feel at ease, which is that if I was at a dinner party at a friend's house, I would find myself in the kitchen almost invariably helping out. I assigned myself the helper role. And then it

was like I had a job to do. So my primary job was no longer socializing. It was actually helping out and the socializing just kind of happened around that. So it was an interesting hack around this. So when we experience anxiety, and these days, I think people certainly know the feeling of having not just a single point where it's coming from, but it's coming from health concerns. It's coming from the pandemic. It's coming from social. It's generalized. It's job concerns. Is the experience of this similar to stacking one on top of the other, on top of the other, on top of the other? Like, is there a compound effect when we have multiple contributors? Absolutely. Absolutely. Just gets worse and worse. And there's a feeling of drowning that comes,

I just can't get to a stable place, which is why having those mechanisms that work for you. I talk about as many as I could pull together from the science articles because I know not all of them work for everybody, but some of them, one or a handful, will work for everybody in this set of examples that I provide. And I'm a big proponent of self-experimentation. I haven't been a scientist, so I know how to experiment officially with my scientist hat on, but I've spent years and years experimenting on myself, systematically looking at, do I do also, big question, will I do it? Let's say I find that marathon running is so great for something in my life. Well, that's too bad because I'm not going to marathon run. I don't like running. I know myself that well. But I do love in terms of things,

fun things that I do around anxiety. I call my funniest friend. I went to high school with her. She always makes me laugh uproariously. And all it takes is a quick phone call. Okay, I need something funny. Say something funny, Noreen. That's a good one. Netflix specials of standup comedians. Love that. I mean, I don't know how many standup specials I watched over the pandemic. They got me through. Late night comedians, love them. All those things, find those things that bring joy, that make you feel good. Exercise is one I've studied and I do a lot as well. But it's not all sweat and work-related things. Breath meditation, meditation

and mindfulness, also very, very powerful. I've been working with a wonderful breath meditation teacher and he's been showing me all these different breath, ancient approaches. That's not just for calming. Some are calming, some are energizing. Some, it's this wide range of different patterns that are so fun to learn about. And I like that.

So I, you know, I glom onto that, but it may be different for you. So get comfortable with a little bit of exploration, but use the techniques that have been shown, you know, with scientific approaches to be effective. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.. Tell me how to fly this thing. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary.

So we've been talking about anxiety, what it is, how it affects us, how it stacks up on us, and how we feel it. And a lot of that is this is just explaining why we feel so bad when we feel this thing called anxiety. But then your invitation is to say, but two things. One, anxiety experience at a certain level actually comes with a myriad of benefits. And then how do we get to that place where like at a certain level where we actually can experience those benefits? So I want to dive into what some of those benefits are right now, because I think a lot of people listening to this are probably saying, I cannot imagine how you could tell me this thing that I like all I want to do is not feel it, actually has a whole bunch of benefits. Yeah.

Let's explore some of these. One of the things that you talk about is anxiety. One of the benefits is actually increased motivation. How does this work? Yeah. The word that I like to use for this particular superpower of gift of anxiety is productivity. I love using that word because usually people think, oh, anxiety just shut me down. I can't, you know, I'm done for, for the rest of the day. But it comes from the idea that the anxiety that we've been talking about since the beginning of this podcast is really a form of energy. It's a form of activation energy because again, remember evolutionarily, it's getting you ready to do something. You're going to fight the line. You're going to run away. That is energy.

It's cognitive energy. It's physical energy. It's like, oh, well, that could be, I could kind of start to see how that could be good. So here is how the superpower of productivity works. So this uses a very, very common form of anxiety that most of us have, which is the what if list. It strikes us at different parts of the day and for different projects. Like, oh, what if I didn't send that email and it wasn't written in the right way, or I didn't send it to the right person, or all these, what if it happens to hit me still to this day, right before I'm going to try and go to sleep,

and sleep is coming and bing, oh God, I just remember all the what ifs. And so here is it. And that is your anxiety, you know, rearing its head. So here is how to transform that. For me, the next morning, I don't do it at night because I still try and fall asleep. But the next morning, I can still remember all those things that woke me up for that moment. Each one of those, I write those down. Note, none of them are about watching Netflix or similar things. They're all about important things that you need to, or you want to do. And after each one of those what ifs that you write down, you put an action on it. You do something about it. You ask somebody, you reread your email,

you rewrite your email. You ask five people to rewrite it for you. You put an action on it. I must give credit where credit is due. This gift came from a lawyer that I met at a birthday party who when told that I was writing a book on anxiety, she said, oh, I'm a high paid lawyer that I am, New York City lawyer because of my anxiety. And this is the approach that she told me about. And I've, I've since hired her actually, because she is a great lawyer and I've given her credit for, you know, you created the first superpower that I always tell everybody because it's so easy to grasp. And literally, everybody out there, your call to action is do this anxiety hack today. Turn your what if list into a to do list. Do it and see what that does for both the feeling of anxiety, because it should go down.

Putting an action on those worries rather than just sitting there. It's like, oh, God, what's going to happen? But doing something for it helps relieve that anxiety. And I find it so powerful. It's doable. It's understandable. And so I'm glad you started with that one. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting to me also the way that you sort of like, it's almost like the alchemy part here, you know, like you're transmuting it from anxiety into actually output, right? Yes. But it also occurs to me as you're saying this, you know, that anxiety is largely, it's

an anticipatory experience. I think this negative thing might happen. Yes. And by doing it, you effectively take yourself out of the future tense and put you into the present moment where you're actually just, you're making the thing that you're concerned happen, or at least you're testing your hypothesis in real time. And once you can respond to actually like fact and doing, it makes it harder to then spin about the future because now you have sort of like your current experience to counterbalance

it. Does that make sense? Yeah, it absolutely does. Although now as a administrator and dean at NYU, I think of all of our students who are just putting in their application now. They did that, but there's this waiting period. Now, what is the to-do to do for that? There isn't a lot of action that you can do.

And that's where you can go back and do the approaches. Exercise. 10 minutes of walking will decrease your anxiety levels. Did you know that? That is my biggest tip of anti-anxiety tools. 10 minutes of walking. You don't even have to change into your sneakers. Just walk with whatever shoes you have on.

That will turn it down. And remind yourself, once you've turned the anxiety down, that anxiety comes from this wonderful desire that you students are having out there to further your education. That is a great desire to have. And it's coming from a positive generative place. And so I'm sorry, I can't alleviate all of your students, you know, worry until you get that decision

letter. But there are still lots of things that you can do to make that gap between submission and receiving of that news a little bit easier to live through. Love that. It's sort of what you described feels like a combination of exercise and a little bit of cognitive behavioral therapy reframing mixed in all as a blended experience. One of the other benefits that you talk about is increased creativity. And again, this feels so counterintuitive to me. And I'm wondering, as I'm

thinking about some of the other benefits, and I want to talk to you about some of them as well, part of the counterintuitive part is that when we are at a state of maximum anxiety, none of this feels accessible to us. But it sounds like what you're saying is if we use some of these other tools that you talk about, we can sort of downregulate the level of anxiety to this more manageable level. And once we're at that space where we're not on complete overwhelm. That is sort of like this, there's like a sweet spot where there's a lot of benefit that comes from it. So before we even get into creativity, is that assumption right? Yes. You hit it on the head. It's exactly right. There is this combo of learning how to turn it down, being able to step back a little bit. And that is a really important key. Creativity, and it is counterintuitive because anxiety kind of nixes usual creativity. Flow is gone. Sorry,

no flow, no creativity for you. But again, if you have some of these techniques, and here's the other thing that people don't realize. There's like, oh God, what anxiety is going to come at me today? Well, I think you can predict 80 to 95% of your anxiety because our lives are not that uncertain. We know this person gives us anxiety. We know that situation gives us anxiety. They've given us anxiety for years or at least several times before. So we can predict what that is. And so in a moment where you're not in heightened anxiety, here's where it becomes a wonderful tool to test your creativity. This just comes from typical approaches to diffusing difficult situations. Are there more than one way to approach this person or interact

with this person that always gives you anxiety? I mean, the name of the person will spark anxiety. Well, are there other approaches? Maybe you approach them with another person. You put a third person in there to help buffer that. Maybe you prep that conversation in a different way. Maybe you get a lot of information about that person's opinion so that more difficult kind of confrontations are minimized because you know much more and you hadn't bothered to some meeting or encounter before. A hundred different ways. And so you start to get good at, oh, actually, maybe there are 10 different ways that I'm not doing to do this. And you start to go through it. And then you start to learn what works better, what works worse. Maybe you'll find

one that works worse. That happens sometimes too, but then you know never to do that. But you start to get this more systematic approach to your own anxiety, coming back to this concept of self-experimentation. And what are you doing? You are being very creative in coming up with different... That is very hard to do because we are creatures of habit. We go into these situations. I think of conversations with parents, our longest relationship, except for the relationship

with ourselves. And it's always, I'm always a little 13-year-old girl when I go into that conversation with my mom. I don't know what's going on. Well, maybe I come to that conversation as a 50-something-year-old adult and see, what would I say if this wasn't my mother, but it was just another person that I'm having conversation with? That is a creative kind of exercise that everybody can do. But guess what? It helps our situations of anxiety. And the more you do it, the better you get at it. Yeah. So when you're talking about creativity,

I'm making a translation to problem solving in novel or different innovative ways. You also make this interesting distinction in sort of like under creative models or creative processing models between spontaneous and deliberate. And I think I've heard different language for this, you know, like Danny Kahneman's system one, system two, or in the creative domain, the impulsive or intuitive or, you know, like analytical or rational versus intuitive. Are these all sort of like different names for similar phenomena? Or are you talking about something really distinct? Yeah, they're all creativity, but there are well-described different styles where one is more, maybe I'll call it touchy-feely, where you just go in and be open and just see what comes out and you have no plan.

The example that I've always glommed onto in this more systematic form of creativity is Watson and Crick. Okay. They, they thought about it. They ask everybody around, they really studied all around it. So they had all possibilities lined up in as best a way they could to finally be able to, and then they got Rosalind Franklin in there that was the secret sauce to finally come up with, oh my God, it's DNA, right? So there are different ways to approach it and arts might approach it that way, but sorry, I'm sure there's artists out there that are also very, very systematic and come with a set of tools to help create whatever piece they're going to do. But I do see them as quite different.

And I like that they're different because people's minds work in a different way and it lets more people kind of glom on to a way to approach a problem with creativity. Right. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. So what happens in the brain, assuming that we've got anxiety down to this manageable, you know, like it's there, but it's not overwhelming. It's not controlling us, but it's there. What makes the brain function differently than in a creative aspect than it would without it that makes it better at this process of creativity when you're slightly anxious?

A couple of things that I tried to emphasize in the book. One is that people with what I call everyday anxiety, not the clinical kind, but the kind that everybody has, have more of an opportunity to practice this kind of creativity to get around and to get through their forms of anxiety. And for me, practice makes perfect. More opportunities to practice this craft of creativity around my own forms of anxiety makes you better and better. So that's one way where creativity is enhanced. The other way is kind of the example that I always start with because I do a lot of public speaking. And for a long time, even before I wrote this book and I kind of articulated it more, even in my own mind, I knew that the best talks that I ever gave were those talks where I was

sometimes more than a little bit scared. There was one talk I gave, and I talk about it in the book. I was at Olympic Stadium in Moscow, Russia, and my talk was being translated from my English into Russian. So I was worried that all my jokes would not be funny at all in Russian and that they wouldn't like me. And also I was scared because in this stage, every speaker that came on, they had these fireworks that went off in the front of the stage. I'm like, oh my God, I've never had fireworks on the stage before I came on. So I was really nervous, but I used that energy. Remember I talked about the idea that that fight or flight is cognitive energy. It's physical energy.

I used it. I was walking around the stage. I had a drummer that come out. So I made everybody stand up and move. And I just used that energy. But that energy came from my fear and my anxiety about nobody's going to like my talk and they're not going to understand it when it's translated into Russian. And so that's the other reason why at the right level, I'm not talking about debilitated anxiety, right? If I got it to the right level, I knew my talk. I knew what I was going to say. I was ready. I was just scared. And that gave me this little booster shot of energy.

And that was one of the best talks I've ever given. I've had that same experience speaking before. And in fact, at this point, I almost get concerned if I'm in the green room or backstage before I'm about to speak and I don't feel anything. It's almost like I'm wondering what's going on here. And maybe that's the state where you're supposed to aspire to be, where you just feel completely at peace and calm and you walk out there and you're good. But I've always felt like you described that just very, very low level of anxiety or even fear. It also is, it's an energetic potential. It is.

That you bring with you out to the experience and that I feel it internally, it just lifts me a little bit more. And I feel like those, whether it's, you know, a giant stadium or a theater or a boardroom, or just, you know, like a couple of people that others feel that, you know, it's perceivable. Yeah. So motivation, creativity, you know, one of the other things I thought was kind of fascinating is you make this link between this sort of like manageable anxiety state and decision-making, because again, this is counterintuitive because I think a lot of people feel like, and I think the counterintuitive part that we keep going back to is people just

immediately say anxiety is bad because the only way that they associate being in an anxious state is when it's at its peak. And that is, can be like very dysfunctional. But when we just keep reminding people like, no, actually, if you can dial it down to a manageable level, it has this benefit or potential benefit. You know, certainly when I'm super anxious, my decision-making goes out the window. But if I'm kind of on edge a little bit and I'm anxious, I'm really not sure how things are going to end, you're saying that there's a potential benefit in the quality of your decision-making there as well. Yeah, absolutely.

And it goes back to this idea. You know, one of the things that happens classically in a classic physical danger fight or flight, and people have heard stories about, you know, the mother in a burning building will spot her child and go right there, pick up a 10-ton thing and rescue her child. Why? Because senses are heightened. And that's also what happens. Your physical, your vision, your attention

can be heightened. Again, not in debilitating anxiety, but in anxiety where you're able to channel that energy. That is the extreme example of, okay, so maybe going into a burning building wasn't the best decision, but saving your child is the ultimate decision that you make is the positive decision for a parent. And so there is a lot of benefit to channeling your own anxiety and learning at what level that is useful. I often come back to this example of everybody can understand the difference of energy of Saturday afternoon, laying on the couch, just watching Netflix because you don't have anything else to do versus in the middle of a busy work week. And I want to have that level of anxiety and kind of vision about what's going on when I make

my important decisions. If I'm too relaxed, too nonchalant, I'm not confident in my decision-making. So it comes back to that level of energy activation and channeling that to help you make the best decisions. And this is a razor's edge too, because too high anxiety and your decision-making processes and your prefrontal cortex stop working well. That has been shown from neuroscience studies, but at this razor's edge area that we've been kind of circling all the conversation, that decision-making process can be better because all your senses

are heightened. Your energy is focused on this. And that is very helpful for decision-making. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense to me. I love your take on this. I remember reading research a couple of years back that actually said, if I got it right, that any fight or flight response or a fight or flight state, which you've connected to often an anxiety state, that our field of vision literally widens, that we literally take in more visual information. And when you bundle that with a state of hypervigilance, where you're sort of like scanning, that you're more likely to perceive, especially if you're with other people and that's part of a decision-making process, you're probably gonna notice more.

I wonder if part of what might be going on there also is that you're literally taking in more data and more subtle data, more subtle cues that might allow you to actually make better decisions. Is there any basis for thinking about that? I know there is data that physiologically there's more dilation in your eyes. So you are taking in more physical, visual information. That is a physiological fact.

What I don't know the research about is whether that has been correlated with processing that information. Just because you take it in with your retina doesn't mean that it's all processed in the brain. There's evidence to suggest that certain things are, again, things are heightened. People are better at noticing things in these heightened states compared to the Netflix mode of energy. But I don't know of studies that have really shown that demonstrably. It'd be an interesting study to explore. I don't even know how you'd set that up. Some of the other benefits that you talk about, performance benefits, which you kind of referenced, it's really a lot of it is about harnessing this excess energy

in a way that puts it to work, that actually makes us operate at a higher level. And we keep circling around this term, sort of like, how do we knock it down to that level? What is that razor's edge? How do we get it down so that we have this feeling, but it's manageable? And you've talked about a couple of these things, one exercise. And as you shared earlier, 10 minutes a day is enough. And I think a lot of people would hear you say that and kind of be like, really? 10 minutes a day? I wouldn't say 10 minutes a day. 10 minutes of walking immediately after will decrease your levels of anxiety. So you might have five anxiety provoking things. And I would recommend that you walk for 10 minutes five times before those anxiety provoking things or right after those anxiety provoking things to decrease that anxiety level. But everybody just wants to know how little exercise they need to do

to get any of these benefits. So finally, I have this answer. So it's not 10 minutes a day to solve all your problems. It is 10 minutes has been shown to turn that volume down. So use that in your life because it's doable. You don't have to go to the gym and dress up in spandex. So that is the take home that people should have. And the other thing is breathwork, meditation, very, very helpful immediately. I mean, here are two things I've just told you. They're both free and they both have immediate benefits. And both of them, you can find over a hundred free videos on YouTube to give you an example of, well, you don't need an example of how to walk, but breathwork would benefit from a little bit of guidance and there's so many to choose from. So that's why I

start with those two. And I love that. And I love the fact that it's sort of like widely accessible to a lot of people. And even if you have mobility challenges, we all actually have to breathe all day to sustain ourselves. So in some way, shape or form, it is an extraordinary level of accessibility. I was first exposed to breath work over two decades ago when I became involved in the world of yoga, actually. I owned a yoga studio for seven years and taught yoga and meditation and pranayama. And I was blown away in the early days because there's really, it's sort of like you feel this way. Here's a way of breathing that will help bring you back to baseline or help you, as you described,

some of it is very calming. Some of it is very innervating. Yeah, absolutely. There's a Kapalabhati breathing and yoga is this style of breathing where you literally feel like you're vibrating after it, which would not necessarily be the thing you want to do if you're really anxious. Right. vibrating after it, which would not necessarily be the thing you want to do if you're really anxious. But what is the pathway between breathing and being able to sort of down-regulate this experience of anxiety? The way I describe it is that going back to that parasympathetic nervous system, that natural rest and digest. So what happens is when our bodies recognize this,

oh, this is a relaxation time, nothing on the calendar. And it will naturally, just in situations of danger that fight or flight takes over, well, in situations of relaxation, rest and digest will slow your heart rate down, slow your respiration and slow and deepen your respiration, and then start to bring blood from your muscles towards your digestion and reproductive organs. The wonderful thing there is while I cannot control my heart rate, where it's higher or lower, I can't control where my blood is. Is it in my muscles or is it in my stomach? I can't, as you know, yoga teacher, I can't control my breath very, very precisely. And with the slow and deep breathing that all breath meditation practices offer for that relaxation breath, that is basically mimicking and helping to stimulate that parasympathetic

mode of activation. And that's the only way we have to do it kind of consciously. I can't do it with my heart rate. I can't do it, but it's a really powerful, when you think about it that way, at least me and the physiology nerd, I get really excited. Like, thank goodness we have a conscious way to break in to that system because that is what we're doing. We're not doing that with exercise. With exercise, we are stimulating the release of neurotransmitters that decrease anxiety. Dopamine is going up. Serotonin is going up in that 10-minute walk. Very different pathway. For the breath work, you are simulating the parasympathetic nervous system and getting

all of that to kind of kick in. And so another very powerful way. I love that. There's a third way that is pretty much free for everybody also that you explore. And that has certainly been a practice of mine pretty much daily for over a dozen years now, which is mindfulness or meditation. And it's interesting because a lot of people, if you say, go for a walk for 10 minutes, if you're feeling anxious, sure, raise my hand. I can figure out how to do that. If you're like, okay, so take long, gentle, slow, extended exhales for a couple of minutes after, I can do that. Go do a mindfulness meditation. The vast majority of people are like, you're giving me anxiety by telling me to do this thing that I kind of feel like I am absolutely going to be a failure at. Talk to me a little bit about this. Yeah. So meditation is such a wide range. Breath meditation, as you know,

is the oldest form of meditation. So I focus on that breath meditation and it's linked to the parasympathetic system. But other forms of meditation have also been shown in scientific studies to significantly decrease anxiety levels. And this is mindfulness meditation is, could include breath a little bit, but the neuroscientist in me thinks about it like working your prefrontal cortex. Can you build more muscle in your prefrontal cortex to be able to say, you know what, I am just going to focus on how my breath feels as it's going into my nose and out of my nose. And yes, I will have thoughts that come through like, what's my next appointment? What time is it? But I will let those thoughts go by because I am really trying to focus on this.

It takes a little practice. Like it's very similar to exercise. You know, people also have motivation. Okay. They could walk for 10 minutes, but You know, people also have motivation. Okay. They could walk for 10 minutes, but you know, more aerobic things are challenging. And the trick is, and I'm sure you'll agree, start small. Don't go to the hour meditation class. Don't go to the 30 minute meditation class, try for 30 seconds and then build up from there, you start to realize that, oh, I can do it. Oh, actually that 45 seconds didn't seem like 45 seconds. And it's little by little, step by step, but it is learning to focus where you want to focus.

And that is the tool that you can use to then apply when you have huge anxiety. Oh my God, I got a weird email from my boss in the middle of the night that says they want to meet with me first thing in the morning. Can I focus on something else? Can I focus on what I want to find out from this meeting? How that meeting is going to go out rather than focusing on the fear. That is the outcome of the practice of mindfulness meditation. It is using your

ability to control where you are focusing and making decisions about that. Yeah. So it's not yet another pathway. Exercise is one pathway. Breathing is one pathway. Mindfulness is another pathway, which are different ways in, you know, as you were talking about, like someone's going to feel better for some people and some not so much. I know mindfulness for me has been a huge game changer in my ability to sort of like manage it. One of the other things that you talk about and which I loved is music. I was a club DJ in a very, very past life in college. So I was behind turntables at a club until three in the morning in my own world for four hours. And no matter how bad my day was,

no matter how freaked out it was, no matter if I was coming into finals, no matter what was going, how anxious I was in my life, when I was just immersed with music that I loved. And to this day, it is such a powerful intervention for me. Talk to me more about music and how this actually works in the context of countering anxiety. Sure. So music we know is a powerful generator of positive emotions. Of course, if you choose the right music, it could also be a source of anxiety if you choose the wrong kind of music. It could also be a source of anxiety if you choose the wrong kind of music. But people have studied a colleague at Montreal Neurological Institute, Robert Zatori, who's an expert on the neurophysiology of music, did an experiment that I love, which is he asked his subjects in an fMRI brain imaging experiment to come in with that piece of music for them that gave them positive goosebumps

every time they listened to it. Everybody has one. It can range from punk rock to Bach, everything in between. Everybody will have a different one. And he imaged their brains when they were listening to that music that did that for them. And what did he find? A very similar network, despite the different music choices, a very similar network of reward-related brain areas that get activated with that, telling us that music is a wonderful reward-generating, kind of evoking stimulus. So you were basically rewarding your brain for all those four hours that you were DJing. And that's why people, you know, spend so much time finding their and curating their own playlists. It is a form of self-care.

It is a form of providing self-joy because we're visual animals, but we're also auditory animals. And the music business is such that they've found these ways to worm into our reward system and make us feel really good. Luckily, it's neither illegal or it's a little bit addicting in a positive way, but it's a perfectly healthy way to increase joy and decrease anxiety at the same time. Okay. So what about music from the inside out? What about things like singing, chanting, praying out loud, similar effect or different pathway? Oh, that's really interesting. I don't think

they've done studies on the effects of personal singing, but as somebody who just started taking singing lessons, who's always wanted to take singing lessons for her whole life. What lessons are you not taking? That's what I want to know. I guess I'm a teacher and I'm a student, a lifelong student, but it's just rewarding. Well, it's not so rewarding because I'm very self-critical about my voice, but I could also hear it improving because I have this great teacher that gives me the exercises that stretch my voice in particular ways. And so it's kind of exploded my own appreciation of songs that I love or even songs I didn't appreciate.

Now I have to sing them because they push a certain range that I'm trying to work on. Sorry, I know nothing about the science of that or whether that's been done, but I can tell you that it is absolutely rewarding. And you experience music in a very different way singing it than you would DJing it and choosing it. And there's a beautiful art in doing that in the right way for that crowd. But to sing it and to get into the technical aspects about the vowel and how much air you need, well, it's just a wonderful relief from neuroscience and academia. So personally, it's been great. I love that. I do remember reading a study a couple of years back on what they called toning, comparing it. And they basically had a group of people who

they basically had them chant OM, but they basically said you could shake any syllable. And they compared that to people doing mindfulness practice. And I think it was breathing practice, actually looking at a whole bunch of different metrics for sort of like relative calm and different markers. And they actually found toning to be more effective at sort of like down regulating that sympathetic state and all the markers that they were looking at. But I've never seen, my recollection is it was a small study. I've never seen anything else about it. But I'm so curious about that because going back to the yoga experience, I have this visceral experience of being in a room with a hundred people saying the syllable that they have no spiritual or emotional connection with. They have no idea what it means. They're just uttering the same thing in unison at the same time. And there's something that is kind of astonishing that just brings you deeply into a present and grounded state. And I've always been curious what that's actually doing.

Yeah. I'm very curious too. I don't know studies about that, but what it makes me think of is we do know that our brains evolved, humans' brains evolved to be social animals. And there's something that happens when you are singing, chanting together that I don't have to have the small talk cocktail conversation with you, but I'm still connected with you because we're both saying ah or ohm at the same time. And it's this very easy way to immediately be connected and to see the beauty of that or to experience, I'll say, the beauty of that connection with the sound that's being created. It always, choirs make me cry. I mean, no matter what they're singing, they always make me cry because it is this joint, beautiful thing

being created right in front of you. So yeah, somebody needs to do a study on that because it's totally so powerful. And I think everyone's felt it. Emile Durkheim describes it as collective effervescence. And I just love that phrase. It kind of describes it beautifully. Yes. One other thing I want to ask you about before we come full circle is in terms of, again, under the category of things that let us just kind of like get to more of a manageable state is the notion of like altruism playing into your experience of anxiety. Yeah. That is my favorite superpower that comes from anxiety. I call it the superpower of empathy. And I really kind of came about and discovered

this superpower thinking about my own, as we've been discussing, my own old anxiety of social anxiety. And this form of social anxiety that I think about still a lot is the social anxiety of raising your hand in the classroom and asking a question. And I had years and years of anxiety. Ooh, I wanted to ask a question, but maybe if I say something stupid, everybody will think I'm stupid. Everybody thinks that. And so it took me many years to realize that everybody thinks that, and I should just ask the question. But now I'm at the front of the classroom. And I realized that those years and years and years of struggle and, you know, dealing with that gave me a superpower of teaching, which is I know there's 10 times as many questions out there that are actually people raising their hands. And so I really try

and go out there and answer questions and get them to ask me things, you know, one-on-one rather than in front of the classroom. And I realized that my own anxiety, social anxiety for asking questions became a superpower of empathy. Now that's just not for me. It's for every single person, because what you can do, and this is your second call to action here, is to think about your most common form of anxiety. You know what it feels like. You know what it looks like. You know the situations where it comes up. And likely so many of the other people are having that same form of anxiety, even though their mask is saying, hey, I'm cool. No problem. Well, if you notice that and you notice somebody's mask crack, all you have to do is reach out and say a kind word.

And I love this one because it is a superpower of empathy and the think of anything that our world needs more today than higher levels of empathy, both for ourselves and for others. I love that. It feels like a good place for us to come full circle. So in this container of Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?

Love yourself, love your life and love others. Thank you. Hey, love your life, and love others. Thank you. So please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person. Just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become

action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

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